Lessons from School Closings
by Jaritza Geigel
My name is Jaritza Geigel and I am a youth leader at Make the Road New York and a graduate of the Bushwick School for Social Justice.
Our community experienced the phase out of Bushwick High School Campus almost seven years ago and know directly the impact closing its doors had on students, teachers and community members. While the new small schools graduate a much higher percent of students, they serve less than half of the number of students that were on the original rolls. Nearby high schools felt the painful impact of receiving overflow in schools already struggling with the issue of overcrowding. Our community was making demands from the beginning about the removal of so many seats and were promised by the DOE they would be replaced. Seven years later we have not seen an increase in seats in Bushwick. District 32 has an average of 1,330 students enrolled in each grade level, but only 713 available ninth-grade seats.
Additionally, we found out with little advance warning that Bushwick High School was on the list slated for closure, allowing little time to inform the community. There were no community meetings with the DOE. There
